DLBeno

...to all of you traveling, good luck today and this weekend. Looks like it is a bear on the east coast today:

Due to WEATHER / SNOW-ICE, there is a Traffic Management Program in effect for traffic arriving La Guardia Airport, New York, NY (LGA). This is causing some arriving flights to be delayed an average of 4 hours and 20 minutes. To see if you may be affected, select your departure airport and check "Delays by Destination".

Delays by Destination:

Due to SNOW REMOVAL, the General Mitchell International Airport (MKE) was closed as of Dec 19 at 05:00 AM CST. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

Due to WX/SNOW/ICE, departure traffic destined to CYYZ airport is currently experiencing delays averaging 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Due to WEATHER / SNOW-ICE, departure traffic destined to Newark International Airport, Newark, NJ (EWR) is currently experiencing delays averaging 5 hours and 27 minutes.

Due to WEATHER / SNOW-ICE, departure traffic destined to John F Kennedy International Airport, New York, NY (JFK) is currently experiencing delays averaging 3 hours and 20 minutes.

Due to WEATHER / SNOW-ICE, departure traffic destined to Philadelphia International Airport, Philadelphia, PA (PHL) is currently experiencing delays averaging 2 hours and 55 minutes.

Due to WEATHER / SNOW-ICE, departure traffic destined to John F Kennedy International Airport, New York, NY (JFK) will not be allowed to depart until at or after 3:30 pm EST.

More of the same this weekend. Holiday travel at its best!

Happy holidays to all of you who fly Delta Air Lines.

Cheers.
-b-

DiverDave

Thanks for the thought - I have completed all air travel for 2008!

David

xanthuos

I just took a bump on AUS-ATL (I'm heading to MCO).
The holidays are upon us!

Dilemma

Probably a good day for voluntary bumps!

NOLA7460

Hoping for a bump run tomorrow. On JFK-DCA. Could use those vouchers.

Stefferdoos

Bah! Had my 2:55 to SYR cancelled. Was standby on the 6:05 and didn't get on. Now standby on the 9:55. Supposed to be first on the list after passengers that have original reservations for the 9:55. I guess we'll see what happens. My 2 weeks off the road was going to begin tonight. I guess we'll see. Thank God the quiet room in the C Club is nice and peaceful.

Hope you all have better travels than I have so far.

Citrix Trainer

Due to SNOW REMOVAL, the General Mitchell International Airport (MKE) was closed as of Dec 19 at 05:00 AM CST. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

We received a foot of snow yesterday at MKE and the airport did not open until 4:00pm. My MKE-ATL-TPA trip was so late on the first leg that I spent the night in the Atlanta Airport. I had forgotten how hard the seats are there.

Right now I'm at the A16 CRC trying to wake up. I was the first one here!

Now I'm hoping the 0830 ATL-TPA gets me out on time...

hedo_traveler

My son flew in from SEA yesterday morning through MSP. He has been out there for two years stationed at Fort Lewis. This was the first time that he made it home without any delays despite it snowing in SEA, MSP and BDL.

jamiel

Well, it could have been worse...

Was booked DTW-CVG(NW)-MCO-ATL-DTW (rest DL)on Sat to eek out 25k, only $171 so I couldn't pass it up. Got advance upg on MCO-ATL-DTW

Tracking the flight in the AM everything looked fine. Set off to the airport about 11

At 11:40 got to the airport to see the 12:45p DTW-CVG CRJ delayed to 3p. This won't do so I go off to the "special service facility (i.e. big 3 ticket desk)where the agent checks me in and hands me my 4 boarding passes. I have to point out to her the delay, she was formerly at the WP desk so understood what I was trying to do. Ended up getting me on the 1:xx nonstop to MCO. I'm now officially in trouble with my 25K by a hundred miles or so (wouldnt' have been if there wasn't a delay on a trip in November which necessitated a refund and rebook on WN, but I digress...)

Painless flight to MCO---quite full except, oddly, for my row...BC entirely empty on the 319. No upgrade....no biggy

I hadn't been to MCO in almost 10 years...what a zoo! Used to fly out of there as a possible alternate when I lived in TPA...gawd what a zoo. Interesting that the CLEAR takes away the FC/BC express lanes...

4 Virgin flights...that part of the airport was just heaving.

I'm on the 6:30, but at 5:10 the 5:30 is sitting at the gate selling upgrades (so I could keep my upg on standby, but, ooops, DL won't let me standby w/o a $50 copay. No f*n way...I go off to Burger King

Board fine on the 6:30...painless except for a margarita that turned out to be tequila and grapefruit juice (!)

Get to ATL, get scared when the NW flights from 4p and 6p are still on the board, but my 9:40 shows on time. Make a few calls

(funny...was on phone with a friend when a guy sits down and suddenly am inundated with flatulence...except it was just a lady on the other side opening her meat and three from Paschall's (collards have a unique smell...I love to eat them and would have known the smell if I'd still be living in the south). Props to her...feeding some of them to her stroller-child (far better for them to get used to reasonably healthy adult food rather than frenchfries and chicken nuggets)

Anyway, they call boarding, I get in line. Hand them wrong BP, it scans as "check flight". I dig for correct one (printed on NW stock from Detroit), when it beeps..."no seat". That throws the agent for a loop...he bangs on the computer for several minutes, finally takes it over to the actual desk where they bang on it for a couple more minutes, then they realize they have to move the person in my seat (at first I assumed it was a non-rev but later realized it probably wasn't), which they do. Then we wait for catering, which never came. They wanted to beat the snow in Detroit, so they took a poll (sort of) of the plane which said "get us out of here", which, to their credit, they did, on-time and safely

The flight attendants did an abbreviated service in F and nothing in back...I got a flat club soda from the prior leg. Sorry if you're flying DTW-ATL this morning...all there will be is coffee, it appears...

Anyway, now to fight for original routing credit.

BenMeddle

My 11:00 AM from LGA to ATL was canceled today. Delta re-booked me tomorrow night on a 9:00 PM flight, which isn't exactly convenient considering my final destination is a 2:30 drive from the airport.

I don't know why the flight was canceled. I suspect it's because it's the one flight around that time that was not a connector in one direction or the other - just a straight shot to ATL with a turnaround later in the day. Other flights around the same time got off without problems and delays this morning were only about 40 minutes, which is 1 minute in LGA time.

Not happy, obviously, but I'm also not willing to stake out the airport for hours trying to get a flight today.

It does not seem like DAL could claim the cancellation is weather related, so any suggestions on some recourse? Flight was $279, but it's going to cost me another $165 to get to my final destination now.

CDKing

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 6.8))

any news as to whether dl will extend the winter travel waiver for new england? my girlfriend is supposed to leave at 6am tomorrow from PDX and I know its going to be a mess for the next few days.

I fly USAir and they extended through the 23rd a few days ago. we were just complaining a few days ago about how long it took for us to do that.

come on delta hurry up

mikeef

Here we go...Thanks for giving me a post to vent my frustrations without starting a new thread:

Had a flight booked FLL-CVG-BOS yesterday, returning from a cruise. Got to FLL early enough to catch the FLL-BOS non-stop. We switched to that flight and they charged me $50 (My wife is Platinum.). I was hoping for a freebie due to the weather, but at that point, I was cool with paying the $50.

We got to the Crown Room where my wife noticed the following on the website:

"If your flight is canceled or significantly delayed, you are entitled to a refund. Even if your flight is not canceled, you may make a one-time change to your ticket without fee if you are scheduled to travel to or from the following destinations on Delta, Delta Connection®, or Delta-coded flights during the specified time periods listed below."

Now the fun starts. The first person at the Crown Room told me that she couldn't refund the charge (which, according to the website, I shouldn't have been charged) and that I would have to go back to the front. We asked her to call the check-in area where they charged us, and a second person jumped in and said I wasn't entitled to a free change because my flight wasn't canceled. He said that, technically, the second sentence in the statement on the website meant that you could only make a one-time change if your flight is canceled, not delayed. I had them call a supervisor who reversed the charge without a question. We also had a nice discussion about over-literal interpretations of the rules and doing what is right for the customer. It all would have turned out to be moot, anyway, since the CVG-BOS flight was eventually canceled.

After an hour mechanical and an odd flight home (I'm convinced that any route to Florida is a punishment for the flight attendants.) which included some of the most class-less human beings that I have ever seen on an airplane, we made it to Boston to wait for our bags.

And wait. And wait. And wait some more. Five flights, only one carousel working. After an hour and twenty minutes, my bag showed up, with a label ripped off the front and pieces of metal protruding. I asked where I could file a claim. The Delta rep pointed to the office and simply said, "We're not responsible for anything on the outside of the bag." I waited in the office and got to the front of the line. The rep simply stated, "We're not responsible for anything on the outside of the bag."

I couldn't take it anymore. I said, in my sympathetic voice, "I know that you have had a long day and have taken a lot of the brunt of angry customers. But I just waited over an hour to get my bag and when it gets to me, it's damaged. And instead of saying, 'I'm sorry, let me see what I can do to help,' the first thing you say to me is 'I'm not responsible.' At this point, I have spoken to several people and no one has uttered the words, 'I'm sorry.' Instead, everyone has given me a long list of things that they couldn't do. All I want, at this point, is someone who cares that something went wrong. I don't care about the label, I'm just more concerned that I now have pieces of sharp metal sticking out of my bag where the label used to be, which could scrape up me or one of your employees."

He looked at me somewhat sheepishly and agreed to file a claim. Of course, he didn't note the damage and marked the claim "denied." When I asked him why he marked it denied, he said, "Oh, that's what we do for all claims. Here's a number to call."

It's now a day later and the phones have been busy non-stop.

Anyway, thanks for listening to me vent.

Mike

StayingHomeIsBetter

mikeef,

I agree that you have ample reason for being upset.

However:

1) The airline hauled you from point A to point B.
2) You are not dead.

Unfortunately, and increasingly so, 1) and 2) define customer service "success" for the airline industry.

As you probably already knew, the airlines deny virtually any liability for luggage damage, short of the bag getting sucked off the luggage cart and chewed up by a jet engine (don't laugh, I have a photo of a DL cargo container container wedged in the intake of a DL engine).

While I avoid checking luggage whenever possible, I ended up buying luggage with a "We'll fix for free anything the airline breaks" warranty.

photojojo

I'd strongly suggest not taking the VBD's today unless you don't like your in-laws and/or have a good hook up you're working on at the airport.

An SMS agent just told me that at least at JFK they can't reaccommodate you until Tuesday. Here at DCA there are only about 2 seats left on the remaining flights tonight.

AndyTLe

And I thought I had it bad Wednesday-Friday.